Effect of moderate to very low fat defined formula diets on serum lipids in healthy subjects

Serum total cholesterol, high density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol, and triglyceride levels were studied in healthy male and female subjects consuming for one-week periods a diet of conventional food (CF) providing 42% of energy as fat, principally butter fat, and then in random order nutritionally complete, defined formula diets of moderate (32%) to very low (1%) fat content. Compared to CF, the formula with 32% of energy as corn oil lowered serum cholesterol by 25% and the ratio of total to HDL-cholesterol by 13%. Low (9%) and very low (1–3%) fat formulas reduced HDL-cholesterol by as much as 40%, raised the total: HDL-cholesterol ratio by about 20% and raised serum triglyceride levels by as much as 100%. When low and very low fat formulas were ingested for three weeks, these effects persisted although maximal responses occurred during the first week. These results demonstrated that a moderate fat formula diet with a high P/S ratio had a more favorable effect on serum lipid levels than various low fat formulas. Low fat conventional food diets should be studied in long-term controlled metabolic experiments before such diets are recommended to the general population for coronary heart disease or cancer prevention.     

Chemotaxis Disruption in Pratylenchus Scribneri by Tall Fescue Root Extracts and Alkaloids

Tall fescue (Festuca arundinacea) forms a symbiotic relationship with the clavicipitalean fungal endophyte Neotyphodium coenophialum. Endophyte-infected grass is tolerant to nematode, but the factors responsible are unknown. One objective of this work was to determine if root extracts of tall fescue effected chemoreceptor activity of Pratylenchus scribneri by using an in vitro chemoreception bioassay. Another objective was to determine if specific ergot alkaloids (ergovaline, ergotamine, a-ergocryptine, ergonovine), and loline alkaloids, all produced by the fungal endophyte, altered chemotaxis with this bioassay. Methanolic extract from roots altered chemotaxis activities in this nematode but only from roots of plants cultured 45 ≥ d, which repelled nematodes. Extracts prepared from noninfected grasses were attractants. This assay indicated that the alkaloids were either repellents or attractants. N-formylloline was an attractant at concentrations of 20 μg/ml and lower, while at higher concentrations it was a repellent. Ergovaline, the major ergot alkaloid produced by the endophyte, was repellent at both high and low concentrations and caused complete death of the nematodes.     

The design of manual handling tasks: revised tables of maximum acceptable weights and forces.

Four new manual handling experiments are reviewed. The experiment used male and female subjects to study lifting, lowering, pushing, pulling, and carrying tasks. Each experiment used a psychophysical methodology with measurements of oxygen consumption, heart rate, and anthropometric characteristics. Independent variables included task frequency, distance, height and duration; object size and handles; extended horizontal reach; and combination tasks. The results of the four experiments were integrated with the results of seven similar experiments published previously by this laboratory. The integrated data were used to revise maximum acceptable weights and forces originally published in 1978. The revised tables are presented and compared with the original tables.     

Concentration dependence of viscometric properties of model short chain polymer solutions

We study the concentration dependence of the conformational and viscometric behaviour of short-chain polymer solutions in shear flow by conducting a series of non-equilibrium molecular dynamics simulations, covering the entire concentration range. Our model explicitly incorporates all of the important generic features of real polymer solutions—excluded volume, hydrodynamic interactions and finite chain extensibility. Hydrodynamic interactions are included exactly by treating the solvent explicitly as an atomic fluid. The polymer molecules studied consist of 20-site bead-rod model molecules, which correspond approximately to 12 Kuhn steps in the melt. For polyethylene, this represents a molar mass of 1800 g mol⁻¹. In some respects, our results are consistent with experimental and theoretical results obtained for long-chain polymer solutions. We calculate the Flory-Fox constant and find a value that agrees reasonably well with results for long chain polymer solutions. Due to the short chain length of the molecules investigated, no semidilute region exists for these solutions. However, the radius of gyration and viscosity still exhibit strong concentration dependence, which is well described by power series, rather than power law expressions, in contrast to the behaviour usually observed in long-chain polymer solutions.     

Recognizing National Hockey League greatness with an ignorance-based heuristic.

This study examined whether people adhered to the recognition heuristic (i.e., inferred that a recognized hockey player had more total career points than an unrecognized player) and whether using this heuristic could yield accurate decisions. On paired comparisons, having participants report whether they recognized each player plus any knowledge they had about each player permitted players to be classified as either unrecognized (UR), merely recognized (MR), or recognized with additional knowledge (RK), thus producing six possible trial types. Participants adhered to the recognition heuristic on 95% of MR-UR trials and were accurate on 81% of those trials. They chose the recognized player on 98% of RK-UR trials, yielding 94% accuracy. Women had less knowledge and recognized fewer players than men, yet they were nearly as accurate as men. Future research should examine the conditions under which the recognition heuristic is an adaptive strategy. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Silk maysin content and resistance of commercial corn [maize] hybrids to kernel contamination by aflatoxin

Several phenols and related compounds have been shown to have detrimental effects on insects while others have antibiotic activity against fungi which attack higher plants. Insects have also been implicated as contributors to preharvest contamination of corn [maize], Zea mays L, by aflatoxin. The objectives, therefore, were to determine (a) if commercial corn hybrids vary in their silk maysin content and aflatoxin contamination of the grain, and (b) if grain aflatoxin contamination is correlated with maysin and related compounds. During 4 years of testing, 16 corn hybrids varied significantly for silk maysin content and grain aflatoxin contamination. Based on correlations, grain aflatoxin content of the hybrids tested was not significantly associated with maysin, chlorogenic acid, and 3′-methoxymaysin contents. It was concluded that other untested phenolic compounds in the category of compounds analyzed in the present study could be involved in resistance to aflatoxin formation, and that other classes of compounds should also now be assessed to locate major chemical resistance components.